McCarthy capitalized on national paranoia by proclaiming that COMMUNIST SPIES were omnipresent and that he was America's only salvation.
An atmosphere of fear of world domination by communists hung over America in the postwar years. There were fears of a nuclear holocaust based on the knowledge that the Soviet Union exploded its first A-bomb in 1949. That same year, China, the world's most populous nation, became communist. Half of Europe was under Joseph Stalin's influence, and every time Americans read their newspapers there seemed to be a new atomic threat.
The Pumpkin Papers consist of sixty-five pages of retyped secret State Department documents, four pages in Hiss's own handwriting of copied State Department cables, and five rolls of developed and undeveloped 35 mm film. The film included fifty-eight frames, mostly photos of State and Navy Department documents. The State Department documents dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including U. S. intentions with respect to the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War, and Germany's takeover of Austria. Other frames dealt with subjects that hardly seem the stuff of spy novels, such as diagrams of fire extinguishers and life rafts. All of the documents that bore dates came from the period from January 5 through April 1, 1938.
John Lowenthal: General, which archives did you examine on the Alger Hiss case?
Dmitry A. Volkogonov: When I was approached about the Alger Hiss case, I tried to examine all the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Department. This department used to be part of the KGB. I was interested in the ’30s and ’40s, and with the kind permission of the Chief of Russian Intelligence, Mr. Primakov [Yevgeny Primakov was subsequently Prime Minister of Russia], I had been able to examine a large number of materials on intelligence services in the ’30s and ’40s. I’ve had the assistance of some of the staff of the Foreign Intelligence archive. And as a result of this work, I have been able to determine that Alger Hiss, according to those documents, had never been listed as a paid or recruited agent for the Soviet Union.
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JL: In your opinion, if Alger Hiss had been a spy, would you have found some documents saying that?
V: Positively, if he was a spy then I believe positively I would have found a reflection in various files. I know this from numerous documents and on many spies, many agents I have been able to see documents.